The manual sharpening of blades is a common actively. This can be achieved in a variety of ways including by way of the manual cyclical reciprocation of a blade in a notch or forked formation defined between sharpening elements. While such technique of sharpening is well known the precision sharpening of a blade is an often-desired activity amongst knife specialists. In this regard the maintenance of the primary edge underscoring faces of a blade ending in its cutting edge at a fixed angle during a sharpening routine is of primary importance. It is an object of this invention to address this requirement. While of particular use for sharpening the blades of knives the invention is not limited thereto but can be applied for sharpening any relevant type of blade.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a manually operable blade sharpener at least employable for the precision sharpening of a blade. Although not so limited the sharpener of the invention finds useful application in the field of the sharpening of knife blades.
2. Prior Art Description
Equipment for the manual sharpening of blades by way of the manual cyclical reciprocation of a blade in a notch or forked formation defined between sharpening elements is known in the art. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,550,632 and 5,440,953 both define sharpening elements crossing one another in defining a sharpening notch. Both patents also present guiding means for guiding a blade into a sharpening notch. None of the these patents, however, address the situation of precision sharpening as their sharpening elements are swivellably mounted to a base that thus gives rise to a continuously changing sharpening angle in the performance of a sharpening routine. While the subject matter of U.S. Pat. No. 4,624,079 discloses sharpening elements that are mounted to maintain a fixed sharpening angle it does not present a guide path associated therewith. It also thus does not provide for the precision sharpening of a blade.